From: Jacques Du Pasquier (jacques@dtext.com)
Date: Sat Dec 29 2001 - 08:01:33 MST
Chen Yixiong, Eric wrote (29.12.2001/10:44) :
> http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/zd/20011224/tc/a_question_of_web_entropy_1.html
>
> From useless and discarded pages to spam, the Web is showing clear signs of decay, says John Dvorak. But is there anything we can do
> about it?
>From the article I got the impression that Mr Dvorak still has
difficulty to adapt to the new media. His "personal portal" page on
his homepage illustrates this, with a thematic index of "excellent
links", without further specificity. This reminds me of 1994 or so. It
doesn't make any sense anymore.
I don't experience the Google decrease in efficiency. To the contrary
I find it better and better, with accuracy unmatched, and with new,
brilliant features (now it searches PDF, DOC, XLS, database files,
etc. files ; it searches images and newsgroups...) It is what we never
dreamt of in the Altavista days : adequate.
I never suffered from "too many pages", or outdated pages. I would be
happy for EVERY page ever put online to stay forever.
It is funny that he should use the "entropy" concept, as the reason
for all this outdated pages is, on the contrary, the fact that they
are not subject to entropy. A poster in a street will not stay
forever, due to scarce space (=> covered by some other poster) and
entropy (decay) ; a web page will. It is order over-preserved
(by a bit of electrical energy of server machines), not entropy.
Again there's an obvious parallel between the Internet and a
foreseeable physical word, set free of usual physical limits. In an
extropic world, with almost infinite space, energy, and resources, the
people, like web pages, will not feel the effects of entropy anymore
and will just ADD one to the other, without replacing each other.
Jacques
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